Why does my 7900xtx use less power in some games?

GetTheClicker said:

Crap... my games are all Steam and Gamepass. I guess that could be it.

Click to expand...

I don't KNOW that is the problem. It's just a guess.
The driver is also common to all the games, but it has no trouble with Furmark.

But if all the games have issues, it has to be something common to them all.


The only other thing I can think of that's common to all the games would be the Visual C++ Redistributables...




If you don't have all of these you can get an all-in-one package, here...



The file at the top will install all of them...



Everyone should have these installed. Lots of old programs and old games need them.



Whatever you are using to monitor your FPS (post #1), may also be the culprit.
It's also common to all the games.

I use MSI afterburner which now that I think about it I've had issues with it crashing games in the past when it was out of date. I will disable it and use the AMD Adrenaline display.

I would check the fan settings. If the fans are idle and the card overheats it makes sense why it slows down. When the fans finally start working and cool the card then it gets faster again. I would make the fans work all the time at low speed, never stop entirely. Since all games are Steam, maybe it is something with the Steam settings which affects all games. I am not familiar with Steam to tell you what it is and how to fix it. Check all Steam settings. Post screenshots of the settings to examine and help you further.

spapakons said:

I would check the fan settings. If the fans are idle and the card overheats it makes sense why it slows down. When the fans finally start working and cool the card then it gets faster again. I would make the fans work all the time at low speed, never stop entirely. Since all games are Steam, maybe it is something with the Steam global graphics settings which affects all games. I am not familiar with Steam to tell you what it is and how to fix it. Check all Steam graphics settings. Post screenshots of the settings to examine and help you further.

Click to expand...

It's not a thermal issue. I keep track of the fan speed religiously. The GPU hits about 77-80c while gaming while the Hotspot hits 95-99c. The Hotspot does tend to hit 103 sometimes so I dial down the power 5% which takes it back down to 95c. I installed a thick 140mm 6k rpm fan to suck in air from the bottom and blow it up into the card directly. Intake temp is 22c idle and 32c under load.

GetTheClicker said:

It's not a thermal issue. I keep track of the fan speed religiously. The GPU hits about 77-80c while gaming while the Hotspot hits 95-99c. The Hotspot does tend to hit 103 sometimes so I dial down the power 5% which takes it back down to 95c. I installed a thick 140mm 6k rpm fan to suck in air from the bottom and blow it up into the card directly. Intake temp is 22c idle and 32c under load.

Click to expand...

Check your fan profile. Make sure it remains fast up to at least 80C so the card never slows down unless it exceeds 80C. Also make sure you set the graphics to best performance over quality and compare results. I would personally prefer a less smooth graphics but reasonably fast over perfect graphics that stutter.

GetTheClicker said:

It's not a thermal issue. I keep track of the fan speed religiously. The GPU hits about 77-80c while gaming while the Hotspot hits 95-99c. The Hotspot does tend to hit 103 sometimes so I dial down the power 5% which takes it back down to 95c. I installed a thick 140mm 6k rpm fan to suck in air from the bottom and blow it up into the card directly. Intake temp is 22c idle and 32c under load.

Click to expand...

The easiest way to verify whether this is a thermal (clocks dropping) issue with the GPU or not, is to check what your GPU clocks are while gaming.

I did away with MSI afterburner. The GPU doesn't take cat naps but it stutters or seizures randomly. FPS is a bit better and more stable. I set my FPS limit to match my refresh rate in a few games which also made a noticeable difference.

Like I said, try to give less data to the GPU. Not only you increase performance and frame rate, but also prevent the temperature rising too high. When the temperature rises it might slow down to avoid overheating. Also make sure you set the fan profile so it stays cool and prevents overheating.